Berkeley-Pacifica’s national board, which met a whopping four times in the month of March, spent most of its open sessions suspended in the twilight zone, although some mild improvement was noticeable by the end of March. In a month that began for Pacifica with a smashingly successful one-day national fundraiser and ended with the timely submission of a stabilization plan to California’s Registry of Charitable Trusts, the board meetings were wildly out of touch, mostly focusing on the 2014-2016 Siegel/Brazon majority’s difficulties in adjusting to their current minority postion.
Berkeley-Pacifica’s one day national fundraiser on March 2 was a smashing success, raising over a quarter of a million dollars to fully fund both remaining delinquent audits (FY 2015 and FY 2016). Network members in NY, DC, LA and Houston pledged $82K on the phone, $54K via Mobile Cause pledge-by-text and fully used up an $86K match fund provided by the estate of Jim Krivo, a former WBAI programmer and supporter. In Berkeley, KPFA’s listeners didn’t hear the fundraiser due to the station’s own local fundraiser in progress, but a days worth of receipts will go to support the national effort. Pulled off only 19 days after the board changed executive directors and appointed Bill Crosier to the position, the effort ends three years of the network’s board of directors whining there was no money to pay for audits and clears the way for a return to legal compliance in 2017. Continue reading Those Who Can→
Berkeley-The emergency PNB meeting on finances with the CFO went off as planned on June 26th, despite attempts to block it. You can listen to the full 90 minute audio here. CFO Sam Agarwal’s written report prepared for the meeting can be read here. A shorter (28 mins) audio segment with selections from the meeting can be heard here. Continue reading Crackdown During Breakdown→
Berkeley- Pacifica Archives Director Brian De Shazor has announced his resignation from Pacifica Radio, effective June 30th. De Shazor’s resignation provoked a strongly worded rebuke to Pacifica from Dr. Josh Sheppard, director of the Radio Preservation Task Force at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Sheppard stated De Shazor’s resignation forced him to retract a Library of Congress offer to apply for grant funding to support the archives and would amount to several hundred thousand dollars in potential lost funds. Sheppard went further, stating the Library of Congress would change Pacifica’s status to that of an endangered archive and advised Pacifica management that “abandoning maintenance of the archive and the consequent degradation of these materials will effectively erase the history of Pacifica”. Sheppard’s full letter can be read here. Pacifica had recently threatened significant cuts to archival preservation staffing. Continue reading Erasing The History of Pacifica→
Berkeley-In bicoastal court appearances this week, Pacifica relied on procedural feints to further delay hearings on two requests for injunctive relief filed against them by their own members. In Northern California, Yeakey vs. Pacifica requests the removal of 7 national board members whose elected terms expired in December of 2015 and who were not re-elected, and the removal of two Pacifica affiliate representatives who are not affiliated with current Pacifica affiliated stations. The complaint can be seen here. In New York, Young vs Pacifica requests the seating of national board representatives from WBAI-FM who have been prevented from voting or participating on the national board for four months by the Siegel/Brazon majority faction. The East Coast complaint can be seen here. Continue reading Legal Bills For Procedural Quibbles→
Berkeley-The March 17th meeting of the Pacifica National Board was marked by virulent conflicts between members of the Siegel/Brazon majority as the philosophy of “organzational darwinism” begins to play out within the network. The majority members found solidarity in their determination to maximize their number of votes on the national board, but dissolved into bitter arguments about the network’s fiscal woes. Continue reading Playing Organizational Darwinism→
The public comment session from KPFK’s March 20th local station board meeting. The primary speaker is general manager Leslie Radford’s roommate and the station’s new volunteer coordinator Adam Rice, who is addressing the board during public comment. The final speaker is Safe Harbor host Chrisanne Eastwood who explains that motherfuckers is a vernacular term that means “you guys” or “dude” and is not meant to be derogatory.
Berkeley-Within days of the seating of the new KPFK local station board after the landslide victory of the Committee to Strengthen KPFK, GM Leslie Radford and roommate Adam Rice suggested to staff members the LA station was in “lockdown” after banning volunteer receptionist (and one of the Committee’s staffer candidates), Allan Coie from the station. Coie, a retired attorney, stated the reasons for his firing were that he gave out the number of the Pacifica National Office to a caller and gave program director Alan Minsky listener complaints that were called in about the substituion of Something’s Happening in the M-Th midnight to 3am hours. Coie said Radford told him the listener complaints were “personal to her”. Rice then fired him and told him he would no longer be admitted on station premises. Continue reading Lockdown→
